With the deepest regret, the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America mourns the death of the Reverend Dr. Zaven Avak Kahana Arzoumanian, who passed away on December 4, 2025, in Glendale, CA. He was 92.
Fr. Zaven was a unique and remarkable clergyman of the Armenian Church, serving as a priest for some seventy years—more than forty of which were spent in our Diocese. In addition to his pastoral service, Fr. Zaven served on the Diocesan Council, and was a member of the Diocesan Unity Committee.
His ministry had many facets. He was in his natural element in the social setting of parish life. But he was equally at home in the quiet vocation of scholarship. Through a lifetime of study, he became deeply knowledgeable about the Armenian Christian heritage, approaching our holy tradition with reverence and humility; treating it as a precious treasure. Most of all, he sought to share that treasure with others who would benefit from its ageless wisdom.
In his generation, Fr. Zaven was one of a handful of learned people who could express the church’s ancient teachings in the language of the modern world. His continuation of Patriarch Ormanian’s “Azgapatum”—the definitive work on the history of the Armenian Church—was a tremendous undertaking, which will be viewed with admiration and gratitude by future generations of Armenian Christians.
His intellectual presence was an asset of incalculable value to our church. And through his life’s work, Fr. Zaven took the gifts that he had been given, and returned them to his church, his people, and ultimately to God.
Fr. Zaven is survived by his wife Yn. Joyce, for whose health and peace we fervently pray; and by a large, intergenerational family of surviving siblings, nephews, and nieces. To these, and to the countless people Der Zaven touched through his pastoral ministry and friendship, we offer our profound condolences in this time of grief.
At this writing, funeral and memorial arrangements for Fr. Zaven have not been announced, but the Western Diocese will do so in the coming days. In the meantime, please take a moment to read the biographical notes below on Der Zaven’s life and ministry.
(UPDATE: The funeral and final anointing will take place on Thursday, December 18, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. PST, at St. Gregory Armenian Church (2215 E. Colorado Blvd.) in Pasadena, CA. Archbishop Hovnan Derderian will preside. The service will be broadcast over the internet; click here for details.)
May our Lord grant rest to His servant Der Zaven Avak Kahana Arzoumanian, and remember him on the great day of His judgment. With the words of Holy Scripture, we pray: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His faithful servants” (Psalm 116:15).
Prayerfully,
Bishop Mesrop Parsamyan
Primate
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The Reverend Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian (1933-2025)
The Reverend Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian held a special place in Armenian Church life, due to his learned and literate background, and his broad knowledge of Armenian community life culled from 60 years of pastoral experience in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and America.
His family originated in Everek (near Kayseri) in historic Armenia; but his father Yeghia was forced to flee that city, and arrived in Cairo in 1922, where he opened a tailor shop. Yeghia Arzoumanian married Serpouhi Nishanian, and the couple had six children. Decades later, Fr. Zaven would point to the dozens of descendants of that family as proof that the Genocide planners had failed in their murderous intentions.
Fr. Arzoumanian was born in 1933, and baptized with the name Taniel. He went to Cairo’s Kalustian National School, learning four languages. His grandfather Hagop (author of the 1935 History of Everek) would take him to church on Sundays. Young Taniel saw his mother’s brother ordained as a priest in 1945; and in 1949, at the age of 16, he was himself accepted at the seminary of the Catholicate of Cilicia. As a student in the Faculty of Theology, Taniel had an opportunity to meet some of the intellectual luminaries of the Armenian world, including Catholicos of Cilicia Karekin Hovsepian and writer Arshag Tchobanian.
In 1954, he was ordained a celibate priest, and given the priestly name Zaven. From this time, he became a witness to events that shaped the Armenian Church in the latter half of the 20th century (including the contested election of the Catholicos of Cilicia in 1956); Fr. Arzoumanian would later draw on these experiences, and his own historical research, for his voluminous continuation of Archbishop Malachia Ormanian’s Azgapatum.
In pursuit of education he traveled to Europe and America, studying at the University of London, and later at Columbia University (where he received his doctorate in Armenian history in 1983 with his translation of the History of Ghevond the Eminent Vardapet).
Fr. Arzoumanian’s pastoral service began among the Armenian community of Ethiopia (1957-1959), and continued in the United States. For some 20 years, he served the Eastern Diocese as a pastor in Philadelphia, PA: first at Holy Trinity Church in Cheltenham, and then at St. Sahag and St. Mesrob Church in Wynnewood.
In 1984, Fr. Zaven took on the pastorship of the Armenian Church community in Florida. He was instrumental in founding the state’s first Armenian Church: St. David Church of Boca Raton. By this time, he had received dispensation to marry, and with Yeretzgin Joyce beside him Der Zaven devoted his energy to building the fledgling church into a vital member of our Diocesan family. Yeretzgin lent her talents to the parish choir and the Women’s Guild, and received the affection of all through her kind and pious presence.
After Der Hayr’s retirement in 2002, the Arzoumanians moved to California, where Fr. Zaven served the community of Pasadena for several years during the construction of that city’s St. Gregory the Illuminator Church.
With the formal conclusion of his career as a parish priest, Fr. Zaven dedicated himself to research, lecturing, and writing some 17 books—among them his 2017 memoir, Reflections in Retrospect: Memoirs of a Pastor’s Six Decades of Service, published by the Western Diocese.
With his passing on December 4, 2025, these historical and personal writings, in addition to the countless lives who came under his pastoral care, will comprise the enduring legacy Fr. Zaven Arzoumanian leaves behind.
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